Entertainment

HOW TO: Get Your Music on iTunes

Back in the day, it used to be every musician's dream to see his CD on the racks of the local record store (raise your hand if you've ever sold your own disc to a shop in order to see it in the "Used" bin). Now iTunes is the place to be when it comes to hocking music.

1. Do You Qualify To Work With Apple Directly?

First, check iTunes's application and see if you can work with the company directly. It's likely that you can't because the requirements are pretty hard for the average unsigned indie artist to meet. Here's a sampling:

Content Requirements:

At least 20 albums in your catalog.

UPCs/EANs/JANs for all products you intend to distribute.

ISRCs for all tracks you intend to distribute.

2. Pick an Aggregator

Don't meet those requirements? No problem. You don't have to deal directly with Apple. Instead, you can go through an Apple-approved aggregator. Apple has a handy list of aggregators (check out the application page for that) you can use for countries around the world, but for brevity's sake, we're going to give you a little more info on two of the most popular: TuneCore and CDBaby.

Recently, TuneCore raised its rates and added a bunch of new features, prompting CDBaby to offer a price cut to artists who switch over to its service. We'll give you the rundown on each below so that you can make an informed decision based on what's best for your band.

$49.99/year per album (regardless of how many songs are on the album).

Do You Retain Rights?: Yes

Payment: You keep 100% of royalties (after the store takes its cut). You can receive the money via PayPal, EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer to U.S. and U.S. territory banks only) or check. Note: iTunes does take around 30% of sales, so you'll be making $0.70 per song and $7.00 per album.

$59 per album — this is a one-time cost (the listed cost is $39, but you have to shell out $20 for a UPC barcode).

$14.95 per single — this is a one-time cost (same deal, it's listed as $9.95 but a UPC barcode costs $5).

Do You Retain Rights?: Yes

Payment: Users keep 91% of net earnings through iTunes (after the store takes its cut). That's $0.60 cents per song and $6.50 per album. You can be paid via check, ACH deposit to U.S. account, or PayPal.

Other Stores You Can Sell On: Physical distribution of CDs, DVDs, and vinyl, as well as iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Amazon MP3, Napster, MySpace Music, Spotify, Liquid Digital, Verizon V-Cast, Nokia, Last.fm, Zune, MediaNet, Tradebit, GreatIndieMusic and Thumbplay. You only have to pay once to put an album on one physical format and all digital formats.

How Long Does It Take?: Two business days for iTunes, one to four weeks for other digital distributors.

Fees: No fees if you decide to cancel.

3. Get Your Music and Cover Art Ready For Upload

Once you've chosen your aggregator, the process is pretty simple. Just upload your art work to your chosen service and it will lay out how to match it up with your music.

If you're uploading music, it's best to convert your audio files to WAV and set them at a 44.1 kHz sample rate, 16 bit sample size with the channel set to stereo. You can do that in the iTunes software:

Find your song on iTunes and highlight it.

Go to preferences. Under "General," go to "Import Settings."

Change "Import Using" to WAV encoder and change setting to "Custom."

A new window will pop up, where you can change the sample rate to 44.1 kHz and sample size to 16 bit. Change "Channels" to Stereo and Stereo Mode to Normal.

Go back to the library, right-click on your highlighted song and select "create WAV."

Drag file to your desktop.

As for artwork, you should also upload high quality, original images. They should probably be square, at least 1,000 by 1,000 pixels and rendered as a JPG.

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